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Anyway, once Infinity Ward decided that promoting the use of homophobic slurs in their advertising for the game was a good idea the substandard multiplayer options dropped down a peg or two on the list of reasons not to buy the game.

Oh? Where was this?

Edit: And we need more Malstrom kicking in this thread. The man is a walking embodiment of fail.

Sorry, should have included a link or explanation there.

Infinity Ward recently put out a promo for MW2 on their youtube channel (and promoted it on their various facebook/twitter accounts) that was a faux PSA about grenade spamming, calling grenade spammers "pussies" then at the end had "brought to you by Fight Against Grenade Spam" or F.A.G.S.

Even ignoring the last "joke" it wasn't really funny. To me, a video game developer should be trying to eliminate the homophobia and racism in their online communities, not condone their behaviour. Playing online with random people is already pretty bad in this respect, a developer giving such behaviour a free pass seems insanely stupid to me. I can't begin to fathom how they thought it would be a good or even acceptable thing to do.

They've since pulled the video, but haven't offered any public apologies yet afaik. Bowling posted some half hearted things on his twitter but he just skirted round the issue and never really condemned the language. "I think it was more of a social commentary joke of that stereotype than it was a fist-bump of acceptance to it." and "I think the core gag is great, the end is a bit too far from the intent of the joke & can appreciate the concerns. Pulled." I would have at least expected something along the lines of "IW in no way endorses or condones homophobia" but they don't seem to care or be concerned. So fuck them.

I guess I've just become desensitized to that kind of thing within the context of games. Its so prevalent, particularly in online gaming, that a type of player being called a pussy or the group calling another group pussies are fags just doesn't scream "Oh, hell no."

Hell, go into SE++

This is odd, since in any other medium or context I would find it ignorant and offensive.

True Hardcore gamers tend to use language in-game and on the internet that is normally not socially acceptable. Reasons tend to vary from gamer to gamer, but the most common two for shooter fans(aka those who like quick and easy satisfaction) are (a) They are college douchebags who couldn't beat Puzzle Quests tutorial level and (b) the safety and comfort of knowing they can't be touched or punished for what they say. This leads developers to try and appeal to the majority within certain gaming groups by using language they're naturally comfortable with.

I wouldn't have expected an apology for it, and actually would've been very surprised if they had. They tried to relate to their "audience" and failed miserably with their inherently stupid message. But in their attempt they used "gamer lingo" and thus have no reason to apologize(while admitting they messed up). It's sad, I know, but I can expect such incidents to increase in the future, as the Internet is a wonderful thing that lets you play pretend every once in a while.

What actually surprises me about that graph is how slowly Microsoft is regaining ground. I'd have thought they were doing better than that this cycle. Of course I guess compared to last cycle they are doing much better

I'm actually all for PC's no longer being a gaming machine, or atleast to not have any PC exclusives. I hate the hassle of making sure I have the right specs for something, then updating. I like having a simple "Do I own the correct machine for this: Y/N". And I'm pretty sure the argument could be made one way or another, but I always found a certain elitism in pc gamers that really turned me off from it.

Eh, for me making sure my PC has the right specs isn't a whole lot more than "CPU, RAM and GPU outdated? No? Ok, good to go."

But if I could plug a keyboard and mouse into a console and have them work reliably I probably wouldn't care if PC gaming faded away. Until then though I very much hope the PC remains a viable gaming machine for at least RTS/FPS games.